Nearly two years since Malian armed groups were brought to the negotiating table in Algiers to sign a contentious peace agreement with the government in Bamako, there appears to be little peace to be found. The 2012 Tuareg rebellion—the country’s fourth since independence—shook Mali and brought down the government of President Amadou Toumani Touré. It also led to the takeover of nearly two-thirds of the country’s landmass by non-state armed groups and an eventual jihadist occupation, both in Mali’s arid north. A French military intervention in January 2013 stopped the rapid expansion of these jihadist forces into southern parts of Mali and also allowed the gradual reconquest of the territory by Mali’s armed forces. However, the process remains incomplete, and both the government of Mali and its French partner have struggled to establish a viable local order. Even as the French Operation Serval transitioned to the much more geographically expansive Operation Barkhane and then the U.N. Multidimensional Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) over time deployed 12,500 peacekeepers into the country,1 peace and security have been elusive. In January 2017, a massive suicide car bomb ripped through a gathering of former combatants who registered with the government body responsible for coordinating joint patrols of armed nonstate groups and Malian forces, which was meant to be an essential confidence-building measure between the different armed groups and the government. The attack, claimed by a wing of al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), killed at least 61 combatants and Malian soldiers, though reported tolls were much higher.2 At least 150 people have been killed in attacks in 2017 alone, many in attacks claimed by a fusion of jihadist groups active in Mali whose creation was announced in March 2017, the Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wa al-Muslimeen, or the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (GSIM).3

The current difficulties in establishing effective and sustainable local order under the government’s control echo previous struggles in Mali to establish effective and inclusive governance. Various Malian governments have responded to rebellion and non-state violence through a mixture of repression, decentralization, reintegration of combatants, and cooptation of local elites who had their own interests and wars to fight, licit and illicit businesses to expand and defend, and political and economic scores to settle.

In response to the 2012 rebellion, the government of Mali has revived these same old policies while governance failures and corruption persist and abound. Not only has the government shown itself to be ineffective before, the situation in Mali has changed significantly since even the signing of the 2015 accords, raising further questions about the government’s ability to uphold its end of the bargain.

There is also a real danger that armed groups will once again appropriate governance in the north, whittling away at the influence of the state in an insidious manner. Such local governance by local armed groups may not always be bad for local populations in northern Mali. Some may even welcome such a development. But such a policy continues to undermine the state. Moreover, any semblance of peace between armed groups rests on a series of tenuous agreements kept in place for the moment by access to trafficking revenue and the prospect of funds from the government and international community.4

This report traces the evolution of local orders in Mali. It briefly discusses past governance practices and the outcomes of prior rebellions in the 1960s, 1990s, and 2000s. It then turns to the period following the 2012 peace accords and presents analysis on the current prospects for these agreements, as well as other stabilization and state-building measures. This report also analyzes the ways in which governance shortcomings continue to undermine security in the country. Indeed, existing government and international efforts to make short-term peace in Mali are at odds with long-term stabilization goals. Counterproductively, they reinforce social and ethnic tensions and strengthen non-state armed groups while hampering efforts to establish capable and legitimate state institutions in northern Mali. Regional and international actors should not allow the state to repeat past mistakes in the hope of a creating a different outcome.

Several specific policy implications follow from this analysis and basic argument:

Any and all local political solutions to Mali’s conflict must include the central state and be buttressed with support from the Malian government.

The government of Mali should stop using ethnic or tribal militias to maintain security in northern Mali, as this approach has consistently backfired and only further fueled communal violence and feelings of being ignored by the state. At the same time, international agreements like the Algiers Accords must be implemented fully, including efforts at decentralization accompanied by government support and real autonomy, to allow genuine power-sharing in the north, rather than parceling out pieces of territory to armed groups.

Finally, while local agreements can form the basis of more durable cessations of violence, these agreements must take place in consultation with diverse local populations. The Malian government and its international partners must be sensitive to the desires and concerns of these communities, rather than accommodating just the requests (or demands) of armed groups due to a mistaken assumption that these groups fully represent the interests of communities in the areas in which they operate.

A poor, sun-scorched Sahel country, Niger is rapidly becoming a key U.S. and Western counterterrorism ally. The former French colony already hosts French troops, and, as part of its TransSahara Counter-Terrorism Initiative, the United States is building a $100 million drone base there to monitor and respond to terrorist activities across the Sahel. Germany is also building a military outpost in Niger to support the U.N. mission in Mali.

When I visited Niger in May, hotels in the capital of Niamey were abuzz with foreign military personnel. And no wonder: A country rich in uranium supplying France’s nuclear powerplants, Niger is surrounded by countries with active jihadi and separatist insurgencies, civil wars, and potent global jihadi terrorist groups operating throughout the Sahel.

Although there is no Niger-born militant group, the conflicts in neighboring Mali, Nigeria, and Libya have spilled into Niger and compromised internal security, as have global jihadi terrorism and kidnapping. And as a key channel of migrants to the Sahara and to Europe, Niger is also rife with smuggling in assorted contraband. To boot, its political situation is precarious. Addressing this toxic mix of challenges requires sustained efforts to improve governance, not just military operations.

Mali’s Malaise

The intensifying conflict in northwest Mali—which has prompted French military operations in recent years—has creeped into Niger in various ways. Underlying the conflict are persistent, unresolved governance issues.

In October 2016, a U.S. worker with the evangelical group Youth with a Mission—who had been living in Niger since 1992—was kidnapped, most likely by the jihadist group Jamaat Tawhid wal Jihad fi Gharb Afriqa, known by the French acronym MUJAO, or by one of its proxies. Several days earlier, at least 20 Nigerien protection troops were killed when jihadists attacked a Malian refugee camp in Niger.

MUJAO is one of the many jihadist groups that the French government, supported by the United States and the United Nations, has sought to suppress in northern Mali since the launch of Operation Serval in 2013. That operation sought to depose the jihadists who took over northern Mali after wresting the insurgency from perpetually rebellious Tuareg tribes under the umbrella group, the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA).

But although toppling the jihadists in the north was easy at first, creating stability has turned out to be wickedly difficult. The deficiencies of the Malian military forces induced the French to accept some Tuareg tribes, who abandoned the jihadists, as rulers of the north, which displeased Mali’s central government in Bamako.

The governance deficiencies underlying the meltdown of Malian national forces and the outbreaks of Tuareg rebellion remain unaddressed. And Bamako’s problematic rule, still characterized by corruption and impunity, hasn’t motivated local elites in the north to behave better.

The French broadened their military operation in 2014 (Operation Barkhane) to deal with some of the Malian military deficiencies, but terrorism and insecurity have still spread into central and southern Mali. Peace deals with the various Tuareg rebel factions have collapsed quickly, and it’s not clear whether Bamako’s promised devolution of power (rather than a mere devolution of neglect, corruption, and bad governance) will ever get meaningfully implemented.

Meanwhile, there is a palpable sense among the foreign diplomats, military officials in Niger, and Nigerien officials with whom I spoke that a significant and perhaps more complicated deterioration of Malian security is under way. Beyond MUJAO, several other jihadi groups operate in Niger and across the region. In 2010, al-Qaida in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) kidnapped five French employees from the Arlit uranium mine of AREVA, France’s parastatal nuclear energy company. Jihadists have also fired rockets at another of AREVA’s uranium mines, this time in Agadez. The militant group al-Mourabitoune not only smuggles weapons and fighters between Algeria, Libya, and the rest of the Sahel, but is believed to be behind attacks on major Western hotels in Mali and other Sahelian counties.

Libyan Liabilities and Tuareg Tangles

The civil war in Libya unleashed weapons, militants, and contraband flows into Niger. But that legal and illegal trade long precedes Libya’s post-Gadhafi troubles. Like in Libya, Mali, and the Sahel overall, smuggling is a way of life in much of Niger, where legal livelihoods have been hard to come by for decades.

The central government—which lacks policing resources and therefore relies more on local elites to maintain stability—rarely counters collusion between local officials and criminal networks. Local tribes are intermeshed with criminal groups, and tribal affinities and commercial relationships span post-colonial borders. For example, until his death in 2016, a prominent northern political chief in Agadez, Cherif Ould Abidine, was widely known as Cherif Cocaine. Tuareg networks in Niger, including former prominent rebels who now support the central government, nonetheless maintain relations with rebellious Tuareg networks and politicians in Mali.

Western European countries have been preoccupied with the flows of migrants that assemble in places like Agadez, waiting for smugglers to take them to Europe. Although the migrants have posed serious social challenges for Europe, they are in fact only a small fraction of the migrants who cross through the Sahara. Most of the migration is seasonal, with workers from as far away as Burkina Faso and Cote D’Ivore moving to the Sahara for jobs and returning home months later. Simplistic efforts to stop migration—such as moves to shut down the Agadez staging centers or to resettle migrants in the land- and water-poor Nigerien north—ignores that migration is multifaceted. These kinds of narrow approaches will produce be ineffective and even counterproductive.

Boko Haram Borderlands

At its height in 2014 and 2015, the Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria spilled into southern Niger, recruiting local dissatisfied youth and dragooning others. Although the insurgency’s brutality soured many, the preaching of Boko Haram’s charismatic leader, Yusuf Mohammad, was widely popular, reflecting the region’s alienation.

Although Nigerian forces weakened Boko Haram and the group split into two factions (on top of the prior splinter of Ansar Dine), Boko Haram raids into Niger’s Diffa region, in the south, persist. They are not as large as a year ago, when more than 100 Boko Haram militants attacked a military base in southern Niger, killing at least 32, temporarily overrunning the town of Bosso, and absconding with loot. But they remain a threat to an area that is under a state of emergency and food-insecure, and that hosts tens of thousands of Nigerian refugees (for which the Red Cross provides) and perhaps hundreds of Boko Haram defectors. Moreover, some of the government’s anti-Boko-Haram measures—such a ban on motorcycles and on pepper growth and trade, which the government believes are a key source of Boko Haram’s funding—undermine already precarious livelihoods. Such measures do not endear the central government to the local people, nor do they weaken the insurgency.

In spite of these challenges in the south, the clouds along the border with Mali are darkening more rapidly and dramatically. Under pressure from northern Nigerien politicians—who increasingly grumble that Niamey has neglected the security threats in the north in order to deal with Boko Haram—the government hopes to reposition its overstretched military there.

Precarious Politics

In a country with a history of military coups and political instability, Nigerien President Mahamdou Issoufou’s promise on April 1, 2017 not to seek a third term was met with suspicion. His predecessor made the same promise and broke it—and he was then overthrown in 2010. The growing political opposition, among others, have been unimpressed with Issoufou’s opaque references to constitutional revisions. Adding to the disquiet are recent heavy-handed actions by Nigerien security forces in April 2017, which resulted in the death of several student protestors, as well as reduced bread-and-butter government spending as uranium prices have plummeted and defense spending grows.

Niger’s pro-democracy opposition, however, also opposes the U.S. and other foreign military presence in the country. They see the military deals and bases as a way for an undemocratic government to hold onto power and for rich elites to become even richer at the expense of the majority of the population. It is tough for the United States in Niger and France in Mali to reconcile immediate counterterrorism imperatives—which often require deals with less than savory leaders—with the imperatives of achieving political stability and quality governance in the medium term, to address the root causes of support among alienated local populations for jihadi and separatist groups.

The Obama administration’s Security Governance Initiative (SGI)—through which Niger was selected to receive “an enhanced approach to security sector assistance”—sought to tackle institutional and governance deficiencies in addition to building the military capacities of partner countries. But all too often, the partners turn out to be unreliable allies on the battlefield, entangled in short-term contradictory local exigencies. Among other challenges, their priorities differ from Washington’s and they are often unaccountable for their behavior. They often divert the assistance, provided to build institutions, for the contrary purpose of strengthening their own problematic rule. But at least the Obama administration tried, both with the SGI and with the sanction of denying military aid to egregious human rights violators, such as Nigeria’s military forces.

So far, there is little evidence that the Trump administration has developed a similar awareness that efforts against violent jihadism will not be won by air strikes, weapons transfers, or falling in bed with dictators. Real progress in Niger—and among its troubled neighbors—can only be achieved if there are real efforts to foster good governance. In the short term, that includes allowing peaceful opposition protests to take place and not imprisoning and harassing political opposition leaders. President Issoufou must indeed not seek a third term, as he promised, and in the meantime he must be transparent about the constitutional changes he seeks. He must allow a thorough and meaningful discussion of these changes in the parliament and among civil society. The national government must start seriously consulting with local civil society in Niger’s regions and meaningfully engaging with local governors, instead of oscillating between imposing unpopular top-down decisions on the regions and neglecting them. Credible institutional development, including police reform and military accountability to elected civilian leaders, must get under way.

Editor’s Note: As part of this year’s U.S.-Islamic World Forum, many of our participants are writing posts on Markaz to share their thoughts on one of the diverse topics discussed at the Forum. We hope you will join us by watching live webcasts from Doha, Qatar, on June 1-3, 2015, or following the conversation on Twitter with #USIslam15.

One year ago at the 11th annual U.S.-Islamic World Forum, the Timbuktu Renaissance launched its project to foster peace, unity, reconciliation, and economic development in Mali through a focus on its heritage and living culture.

As the Forum’s first Action Group, the Timbuktu Renaissance committee, comprised of 45 thought-leaders from around the world, focused on developing strategies and plans that could be implemented both on the ground in Mali and elsewhere to generate interest in and support for this unique approach to post-conflict recovery, integrating culture and economic development, public and private sectors, local and international actors.

Critical to the success of the Timbuktu Renaissance was the support and collaboration of the Malian government, starting with President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita. President Keita, who delivered a keynote at the 2014 Forum, attended every session of the Action Group, accompanied by his ministers of foreign affairs, culture, investment, and religion.

There was a true meeting of the minds between the Timbuktu Renaissance co-directors and the Malian government representatives. N’Diaye Ramatoulaye Diallo— Mali’s minister of culture and President Keita’s appointed representative to the Timbuktu Renaissance— already had prioritized putting culture at the heart of socio-economic development.

Over the course of the Forum, the artists, scholars, diplomats, foundation executives, and technologists that composed the Timbuktu Renaissance Action Group committee mapped out strategies to protect, preserve, and disseminate information about Mali’s heritage, and to revive its living culture— most notably, music that is renowned around the world as the source for blues and rock n’ roll.

Many say culture is Mali’s calling card to the world; therefore, it makes sense to place culture at the very heart of the country’s recovery from the 2012 conflict— when a toxic mix of violent extremists, Tuareg separatists, and other splinter groups converged on the north, subjugating Timbuktu and the surrounding region to their brutal regime. The futile effort to silence music— Mali’s lifeblood— was met with defiance. “They will have to kill us first,” famously declared musician Fatimata Walet Oumar, a member of the Timbuktu Renaissance Action Group. The 2015 Oscar-nominated film Timbuktu recreates a scene familiar during the occupation, a public whipping for the crime of singing.

While French military intervention expelled the extremists and restored Timbuktu’s mayor, Hallé Ousmane Cissé, sporadic violence continues to plague northern Mali. The peace accords signed on May 15, 2015, mark a step in the right direction, but they are not comprehensive, and key separatists still refuse to sign.

As the Malian government continues to work towards a comprehensive peace agreement, the Timbuktu Renaissance will persevere in trying to raise the profile of Mali as a tolerant, pluralistic society, rich in history and contemporary culture, and as an inspiring success story for similarly afflicted communities.

In both its present— with music from Tuareg, Songhay, Fulani, Bambara, Malinke, and Arab communities among others—and its past, with the humanistic and scientific legacy of the Timbuktu manuscripts, contemporary and on a par with the Italian Renaissance— Mali represents an authentic Islamic counter-narrative to intolerance, ethnic tensions, and violent extremism.

In its first year, the Timbuktu Renaissance has spread the word about Mali’s culture-fueled revival through concerts, public events, publications, tech platforms and media. In addition, Timbuktu Renaissance has collaborated with partners in Mali and abroad to launch and develop projects on the ground. Many were envisioned at the Action group meetings at last year’s Forum, while others have been inspired by the Timbuktu Renaissance’s progress. These include:

July 2014: Timbuktu Renaissance co-directors traveled to Mali and Timbuktu with Director of Google Cultural Institute Amit Sood to meet with Malian government officials; artists; NGO, cultural and private sector leaders; Timbuktu government and religious leaders; and U.S. Embassy officials.

August 4, 2014: There was a Timbuktu Renaissance concert by Malian musicians and discussion held by the Brookings Institution at the Africa Summit Reception in Washington, D.C.

September 20, 2014: Timbuktu Renaissance co-directors organized a Timbuktu Renaissance concert and celebration at the new Africa Center to kick off the annual UN General Assembly meetings, featuring over 20 Malian musicians, including the “Golden Voice of Africa” Salif Keita.

October 2014: The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s series, Mali Now!, featured speakers and musicians affiliated with the Timbuktu Renaissance.

October- December 2014: President Keita added a new component to the Timbuktu Renaissance with the vision to develop a new University of Timbuktu, inspired by its predecessor’s position as a beacon of learning throughout the Islamic world.

January 2015: Timbuktu Renaissance co-directors participated in an international conference in Bamako on the manuscripts of Timbuktu.
February 2015: Timbuktu Renaissance co-organized the Peace Caravan series of concerts in Morocco and Malian cities including Ségou, Mopti, and Bamako.

April -June 2015: Molly Raskin, who produced three PBS Newshour segments on the Timbuktu Renaissance and Mali, created a short film on the Timbuktu Renaissance, which was shown this week at the 2015 U.S.-Islamic World Forum.

And next month, we are organizing a continuation of Peace Caravan: Festival in Exile with concerts by Malian musicians in Europe (The Netherlands, Belgium, Frances, Italy, Poland).

Given the continued instability in northern Mali, the Timbuktu Renaissance has not yet achieved its goal of returning the renowned Festival Au Desert, founded by Timbuktu Renaissance co-director Manny Ansar, to Timbuktu. However, the Caravan of Peace brought Malian musicians from all over the country together for series of concerts from southern Mali to Mopti, culminating in a major “Celebration of Peace” concert in Bamako, attended by thousands. At each stop on the tour, musicians from different parts of the country joined together, sometimes showing solidarity by singing in each other’s dialects.

Further, a strong Malian-Moroccan partnership has emerged from the Peace Caravan concerts. Morocco has bolstered its economy through cultural tourism, built largely around music festivals, making it an ideal model for Mali, as it positions culture as a key to post-conflict economic development. More specifically, Timbuktu Renaissance’s Moroccan partners have offered to host a “Festival Au Désert (in Exile)” in the Merzouga desert (a dune setting similar to Timbuktu) in March 2016.

The Timbuktu Renaissance views culture as a jumpstart for development in Mali. The lilting melodies of Mali’s music, the uniquely beautiful forms of Mali’s mud brick architecture, and the scholarship and scientific inquiry in the Timbuktu manuscripts all help preserve Mali’s identity and attract positive interest in the country. But for Mali’s long-term success, the country’s heritage and culture must translate into broad-based economic opportunities. A re-energized economy, driven by a modernized tourism sector, a new world-class university in Timbuktu, sustainable natural resource development, innovative technology and practices to boost food security in the face of climate change can ultimately make Timbuktu a global model.

Exactly two years after France came to Mali’s aid and fought back Islamic extremists who had seized the north of the country, including the fabled city of Timbuktu, Mali’s President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita marched in the place of honor to President Hollande’s right in the massive rally for unity in Paris.

“Do you understand my emotions? It is impossible for me not to be here,” explained President Keita, remembering the French military operation Serval, which pushed back and eventually expelled the Islamic militants that had terrorized the north of his country and were advancing south.

During the Islamist occupation, music, including Timbuktu’s famous Festival Au Désert, was banned. The act of silencing Malian music, the very root of the blues and rock n’roll, stunned the world. Renowned musicians such as Khaira Arby had to flee, lest the extremists act on the threat to cut her tongue out. Another musician from northern Mali, Baba Salah, put it succinctly: “Music is like oxygen. Now we can’t breathe.”

While the story of the daring rescue of the manuscripts is well known, the content of the ancient manuscripts remains obscure to all but a few specialists. This is especially regrettable because this vast storehouse of science, philosophy, ethics, jurisprudence, literature, music, and poetry represents an authentic Islamic counter-narrative to the twisted ideology of hatred and exclusion that drives extremists like the Paris murderers.

As the vitriolic version of Islam again dominates the news cycle in light of the Paris attacks, it is more important than ever to spotlight the authentic alternative. “Liberté, egalité, fraternité,” or “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness,” may sound foreign to some, but these universal values resonate throughout the ancient Timbuktu manuscripts.

These largely privately-owned documents, numbering in the hundreds of thousands of pages and now secreted away in undisclosed locations, testify to a creative, intellectually curious, tolerant, and rights-oriented Islamic civilization in medieval and Renaissance era Timbuktu – the diametric opposite of the violent, punitive “Islam” of Al-Qaeda, ISIL, and their many offshoots.

The Timbuktu manuscripts contain discourses on human rights, specifically the rights of women, workers, orphans, and even animals. Their pages are filled with debates on the efficacy of slavery, the salutary or deleterious effects of tobacco, good business practices, and governance that will keep corruption out. Some treatises trumpet the importance of tolerance, and others the value of women attending school. In the realm of science the manuscripts delve into astronomy, biology, optics, chemistry, and medicine with a sophistication comparable to contemporary works from Europe.

The Timbuktu Renaissance, a Malian-American initiative launched at the Brookings Institution’s 2014 U.S.-Islamic World Forum, believes that this ancient center of trade, knowledge, and culture offers an unexpected answer to the question plaguing France, and the world, after last week’s attack: how to defeat the terrorists and the violent ideology driving them? The answer is through knowledge, education, and culture: an authentic Islamic counter-narrative of peace, tolerance, curiosity, and human rights provides the bulwark against the viral vitriol of hatred and destruction.

Working in partnership with the Malian government – with the strong and active support of President Keita—the Timbuktu Renaissance aims to foster peace, unity, reconciliation, and economic development in Mali through a focus on its culture and knowledge – past and present. The last element — economic development — is essential to providing a sustainable counter to the well-funded forces of extremism. This has been recognized by Malian Minister of Culture N’Diaye Ramatoulaye Diallo, President Keita’s official delegate to the Timbuktu Renaissance.

Strengthening Mali’s signature culture will revive tourism and drive revenues from creative production. This economic development will enable Malians – whether they number among the many with creative talent – or not, to thrive, to grow their economy, and to develop their society – all part of formidable opposition to extremism.

Mali’s government recognizes the treasure that is Timbuktu, even though the desert town of today bears no resemblance to the “city of gold” from Mansa Musa’s day. Another key item on the Timbuktu Renaissance agenda is the bold initiative to revive the region by creating a great modern university in Timbuktu, inspired by the legendary center of learning of yore. Minister Diallo, who has been tapped by President Keita to spearhead the project, envisions a center of learning both philosophical and practical. The famed manuscripts will receive the extensive research they so desperately need to spread their message of Islamic enlightenment. Through the University of Timbuktu, Mali also aims to become a center of research in agriculture, solar energy, and sustainable resource development.

Within the next month, the Timbuktu Renaissance will launch a “Peace Caravan” series of concerts in Mali, hopefully culminating in a celebration of the Peace Accords between north and south Mali. With a recent cabinet reshuffle, positive signs suggest that the accords will go through soon. And what better way to celebrate peace and reconciliation than with a concert in a country with such a deep, long, and storied musical tradition and heritage? The Timbuktu Renaissance believes strongly in returning the symbolic significance of music to Timbuktu, where it can play its traditional role of uniting people from all over the country and continent.

Other Timbuktu Renaissance initiatives that are already or soon to be underway include the development of a center for innovation and culture in Timbuktu in the former “La Maison” hotel, the erstwhile site of the Islamists’ court and prison; an international travel exhibition on Timbuktu , including manuscripts, instruments, handicrafts, and more; and support for digitization and conservation of the manuscripts.

It was indeed fitting that Malian President Boubacar Keita strode alongside President Hollande in mutual defiance of barbaric violence and in support of peace and unity, especially given the heroic role of Malian Lassana Bathily in the kosher grocery store siege. As the world collectively wonders how to combat the scourge of violent extremism, part of the answer may lie in the renaissance of the least likely of places – Timbuktu.

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On Thursday, July 24, the Africa Growth Initiative at the Brookings Institution hosted a private dialogue on the impact of conflict and instability on Mali and Nigeria’s agriculture sectors. Both these countries possess unique potential to increase their agricultural production; however, internal conflict and political strife have significantly hindered efforts to support sectoral development. This event also served as an opportunity to share findings from a recently completed Brookings study on these issues, summarized in the Africa Growth Initiative working paper “The Impact of Conflict and Political Instability on Agricultural Investments in Mali and Nigeria”. This study was completed with the support of Malian and Nigerian political scientists Moussa Djire and Jideofor Adibe, as well as agricultural economists Alpha Kergna and Abigail J. Jirgi.

During the forum, Djire and Adibe presented findings from research on the trajectories of the conflict in Mali and Nigeria, and Kergna and Jirgi discussed the outcomes of farmer surveys they conducted in Mali (in Gao and Timbuktu) and Nigeria (in Borno state). Following these presentations, Brookings visiting fellow John McArthur moderated a discussion between the panelists and the event attendees. Forum participants included representatives from international donors, U.S. government agencies, multilateral institutions, civil society organizations, and implementing organizations with active agricultural development projects in both Mali and Nigeria.

During this discussion, participants weighed a number of the key issues, including the role of technology can play in mitigating the consequences of conflict, and the relationship between agricultural development activities and counter-terrorism efforts. Discussants considered the unique contexts of each country, posing specific questions about Nigeria’s fiscal federation and whether the constitution limits the federal government’s ability to support conflict-affected, northeastern states. Finally, participants reviewed the options for donors in the two countries and how to invest in agricultural activities that the study identified as more resilient to conflict, such as small ruminant cultivation and aquaculture.

Timbuktu. To many, the name evokes a place of mythic remoteness. To others, it connotes an ancient crossroads of trade, exotic goods and culture. And still others know it as the sacred intellectual capital of the Muslim world, synonymous with universities, debate and religious tolerance. Tragically, Timbuktu most recently conjures memories of the 2012 occupation when armed groups, including al Qaeda-linked jihadists, committed grave human rights abuses, damaged mausoleums and shrines, torched manuscripts and banned music, the very lifeblood of Mali. Thanks to the resilience and ingenuity of the local population, and an international military intervention supported by the U.N. and led by the French, the extremist occupation failed.

A UNESCO World Heritage site, Timbuktu symbolizes both the challenges and the potential of Africa, themes that have drawn 50 heads of state to Washington for the first U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit. The renaissance of Timbuktu as a beacon of tolerance, wisdom and innovation – all signature characteristics of its Golden Age – has immeasurable symbolic power in the Sahel and Middle East and North Africa (MENA) regions, where sectarianism and brutal intolerance are on the rise.

The Government of Mali fully supports this initiative under the leadership of the Minister of Culture Mrs. N’Diaye Ramatoulaye Diallo, whose motto upon taking office was to place “culture at the heart of socioeconomic development.”

Leading representatives of the Malian government including President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita and his ministers of culture, foreign affairs, investments and religion joined members of the Timbuktu Renaissance Action Group which convened artists, scholars, diplomats, philanthropists, investors and technologists, for three days of meetings at Brookings’s 2014 U.S.–Islamic World Forum. The group explored how best to revive Timbuktu as an educational, cultural and spiritual center of Africa. The consensus was that Timbuktu not only can lead Mali’s reconciliation and recovery, but can also provide a model for post-conflict recovery, sustainable development, and countering violent extremism (CVE) that can be scaled and replicated trans-Sahel and MENA.

To lay the groundwork, the Timbuktu Renaissanceco-directors recently returned to Timbuktu with Minister of Culture Diallo, social entrepreneurs and representative of the Google Cultural Institute. With Manny Ansar, producer of Timbuktu’s famed Festival Au Désert, and Salem Oud Elhaj, Timbuktu’s venerable sage and historian as our guides, we were able to maximize the daylight hours the MINUSMA flights allowed. (Commercial flights have yet to return to Timbuktu.)

For Manny Ansar, his first return to Timbuktu since he’d fled for his life to a Burkina Faso refugee camp in the spring of 2012 was bitter sweet. He noticed the relative trickle of people in the streets (a large percentage of the population remains in exile). The main square, which once hosted a bustling market, stood empty save for the scar of the blasted monument at its center. However, Manny also recognized the familiar smiles and waves, the warm Malian hospitality…the resilience.

Everywhere people asked Manny if he was bringing the Festival Au Désert back to Timbuktu. Why would locals care so much about a music festival? In the last decade, the festival has become the most celebrated musical pilgrimage on the continent, drawing musicians and fans the world over. Banned from holding the festival in Timbuktu, Ansar has taken worldwide as a Festival in Exile.

Back in Timbuktu, the return of music and the expulsion of the occupiers restored hope, joy and pride. For culture lies at the very heart of Timbuktu’s identity, and is vital not only to the population’s spirit, but also to its sustenance.

To quote the mayor of Timbuktu, during our visit, “Culture is not just for pleasure (‘un divertissement’), it is essential for the economy.“ He went on to detail the economic devastation after tourism disappeared. “Timbuktu has 70 guides; each supports 10 people. None has been employed since 2012.”

The same themes dominated our meetings with the mayor, the governor and the imam of the Djingareyber Mosque:

Gratitude for the attention to Timbuktu’s challenges.

A recognition of the importance of culture for social cohesion and economic recovery.

The resilience of the people of Timbuktu and their determination to preserve their way of life, including a tolerant and pluralistic approach to Islam.

The meeting with Timbuktu’s grand imam produced a moment of levity when he perked up at the mention of Google representatives in our midst. “Google?! I was the first person in Timbuktu to go online,” he declared with a grin, before leading us on a personalized tour of the 600 year old Mosque.

From the Mosque we caravanned to “La Maison,” a boutique hotel where dignitaries and international music stars alike stayed while attending the Festival au Désert. Weeks after the festival in 2012, the occupiers overran the building and began dispensing their brutal “justice” in those very rooms, executing summary judgments, lashings and amputations.

In TR’s strategy, La Maison will be transformed into Timbuktu’s Center for Culture and Innovation – providing much needed recording artist and TV studios, computers with white space connectivity, university exchange and training programs and NGO support facilities. The center will help alleviate the lack of professional training, as well as gathering places for youth, all lamented by the Timbuktu officials we met.

The TR’s additional priorities are: the return and live stream of the Festival au Désert to Timbuktu; and until then, its continued touring incarnation as a Festival in Exile; an accompanying feature documentary film and film-festival tour; star-infused compilation albums; the restoration and traveling museum exhibition of the famed manuscripts (in the context of a larger Treasures of Timbuktu exhibition); and a virtual Timbuktu website and content aggregator.

The touring museum exhibition, allied with a robust online experience, will help tell the story of Timbuktu until refugee populations and, ultimately, tourists can safely return. Even then, the story of Timbuktu resonates far beyond its remote geography.

Consider its historic significance. Gold, salt and literature held equal value in Timbuktu, once the largest university town in the world. The birthplace of the Blues, or, to quote Bono, “the big bang of all the music we love,” Timbuktu has an unparalleled festival and music legacy. Its treasured manuscripts, peppered with the acceptance of diversity and plurality that is Timbuktu’s calling card contain prescient analyses of issues from human rights to corruption, to debates on the efficacy and ethics of slavery.

With its unique significance, Timbuktu has the capacity to disrupt sectarianism and radicalization, and within the context of a renaissance, to transform the image of Mali, Africa and Islam.

The challenge for Mali, and, arguably, for “all of humanity” is this: will the attack on Timbuktu serve as a wake up call to revive this great center of learning and culture, with its timely model of tolerance and plurality? Or, will the fabled city of gold continue to spiral with its beacon as a spiritual center of science, justice, philosophy, commerce and the arts fading to black?

Yes, Timbuktu evokes remoteness. But, taking into account the universality of its wisdom, in fact, this city of 333 saints, to quote its music icon Ali Farka Touré, sits “right at the heart of the world.”

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https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/indoors-timbuktu-mali.jpg?w=270https://www.brookings.edu/events/the-timbuktu-renaissance-initiative-reception/The Timbuktu Renaissance Initiative Receptionhttp://webfeeds.brookings.edu/~/171797770/0/brookingsrss/topics/mali~The-Timbuktu-Renaissance-Initiative-Reception/
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The Brookings Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World and the Africa Growth Initiative are pleased to invite you to hear featured remarks on the Timbuktu Renaissance Initiative from the Malian minister of culture, the U.S. ambassador to Mali and the vice president and director of foreign policy at Brookings. Remarks will be followed by a live performance by world-renowned Malian musicians. Malian music is considered by many musicians as the root of blues music in the United States and has won admirers around the globe. This event follows the 2014 U.S.–Islamic World Forum in Doha, which launched the Timbuktu Renaissance Action Group, and falls during the U.S.–Africa Leaders Summit. This reception will directly follow AGI’s program, The Game Has Changed: The New Landscape for Business and Innovation in Africa, available via webcast.

The Timbuktu Renaissance Initiative seeks to leverage the power of Mali’s extraordinary heritage and living culture to foster peace, reconciliation and economic development. The mission also aligns directly with the priorities of the Government of Mali to promote peace and reconciliation and with the vision of H.E. Mrs. N’Diaye Ramatoulaye Diallo, Mali’s minister of culture, to put “culture at the heart of socioeconomic development.” For this reason, the Government of Mali embraced the Timbuktu Renaissance as a partner during the 2014 U.S.-Islamic World Forum in Doha this past June. At the Forum, H.E. President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita of Mali delivered a keynote address, and, along with Mali’s ministers of culture, foreign affairs, investment promotion and industry and religious affairs, participated in several of the Timbuktu Renaissance Action Group’s meetings.

Malian musician Fadimata Walet Oumar uttered these fighting words after the extremist invasion and occupation of northern Mali in the spring of 2012. She works with others in the Timbuktu Renaissance (TR) Action Group at the 2014 U.S.-Islamic World Forum in Doha to develop a strategy to bring music back to Timbuktu after jihadists forced hundreds of thousands of civilians, including musicians, artists and scholars into exile.

A revival and strengthening of Mali’s incredibly rich arts and culture has untapped potential to catalyze peace and unity between north and south Mali, and rekindle economic growth, investment and tourism. The TR strategy—to promote inclusion, reconciliation, and sustainable development in Mali through a revival of its culture and heritage—has broader implications for post-conflict reconstruction and for understanding Islam in its global diversity.

When extremists overran northern Mali, they targeted Mali’s culture, notably music, including the world-renowned Festival Au Desert, as well as priceless manuscripts that document Timbuktu’s position as the center of Islamic civilization in Africa during the Renaissance period. This was no accident.

Culture provides the foundation of identity, a bulwark against fundamentalism and the authoritarianism of the rigid Sharia law imposed by the invaders. It is no wonder that extremists try to silence and/or destroy icons of history and culture—from the Buddhas of Bamiyan, to the art galleries in Tunis, to the music, manuscripts and world heritage sites of Timbuktu.

The invaders attempted to erase Mali’s culture: silence her griots—the musical internet for much of Mali, bearing news and history through their songs; destroy her unique mud-brick shrines and UNESCO World Heritage sites which have weathered the desert for over five hundred years; and burn her manuscripts, priceless repositories of knowledge from Timbuktu’s Golden Age. They failed. French forces expelled them; Malians outwitted them, continuing to blend music behind closed doors, and in exile in neighboring countries. Under the direction of the courageous scholar, Abdel Kader Haidara, a member of the Timbuktu Renaissance Action Group, they spirited thousands of manuscripts to safety in a daring operation of transporting hundreds of cases on donkey-back.

Although a UNESCO World Heritage site, today’s Timbuktu is a far cry from the legendary “city of gold,” where scholars gathered and debated much as did their 15th century contemporaries in Florence or Urbino. Notwithstanding the challenges of desertification, climate change, endemic poverty and terrorism, the Timbuktu Renaissance Action Group sees the potential for countering extremism and energizing Timbuktu’s dormant economy by reviving Timbuktu’s multi-faceted culture, and spreading the word about it globally.

Specifically, the Timbuktu Renaissance incorporates several facets: music festivals and their social media broadcast; documentary film and compilation record album releases; the preservation and exhibition of the manuscripts; and the development of a plan for a cultural center in Timbuktu to house and exhibit them, and to showcase indigenous music.

A key topic of discussion for the Timbuktu Renaissance Action Group in Doha will be the return of the Festival Au Désert, a magnet for musicians and music lovers all over the world, to Timbuktu. Over the past year and a half, the Festival Au Désert has been touring outside Mali under the moniker Festival in Exile under the leadership of Action Group Co-convener and Festival Au Désert Founder Manny Ali Ansar.

Precisely because music is the language and lifeblood of Mali, its return to Timbuktu has significance far beyond simply holding a concert. The return of the Festival Au Désert to Timbuktu has enormous symbolic importance for the re-unification of the country, and for combatting the austere extremism of the foreign invaders who banned music.

The other key component of the Timbuktu Renaissance involves restoring and exhibiting the manuscripts, and establishing a permanent cultural center in Timbuktu to house and display these pillars of culture. These priceless, but relatively unknown objects, dating from the 14th century onwards document the advanced scientific knowledge, humanism, tolerance and advocacy for women’s rights that made Timbuktu the center of knowledge for much of the Islamic world, and beyond. Although safe from terrorists in Bamako, the manuscripts are vulnerable to the humid climate, and are suffering damage to their fragile condition.

Introducing Timbuktu’s manuscripts to the world through a traveling exhibition not only would shed light on this symbolic city, but also would call into question stereotypes of Islamic traditions as narrow and intolerant. Bringing this vast storehouse of knowledge to light, therefore, has both local significance for Mali’s sense of identity and unity, and global importance for understanding Islamic contributions to thought.

Salt comes from the north, gold from the south, and silver from the country

Of the white men, but the word of God and the treasures of

Wisdom are only to be found in Timbuktu.

—West African proverb

At its prime, during the period of the Italian Renaissance, Timbuktu was more advanced in scientific knowledge than anywhere in the western world, and as progressive in culture, humanism, tolerance and inclusiveness. Ultimately, spreading knowledge about the extraordinary accomplishments of this center of Islamic learning and culture has the potential to re-define prevailing ideas about Islam and about Africa.

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By Vanda Felbab-Brown

In a typical President Barack Obama speech – beautifully crafted and inspirational, full of lofty aspirations and ideals but admittedly facing difficult implementation challenges – the president’s State of the Union (SOTU) speech revealed what has been emerging as Obama’s foreign policy doctrine: highly limited and constrained U.S. military engagement abroad while focusing on nation-building at home.

Like the Casper Weinberger-Colin Powell doctrine of the 1980s and early 1990s, yesterday’s SOTU called for deploying the U.S. military only when the U.S.’s most vital national interests are at stake. But unlike the Weinberger-Powell doctrine, which emphasized the deployment of an overwhelming U.S. force with no half-way measures, the president’s address yesterday underscored that U.S. military engagements would be surgical and constrained. The president rejected open-ended commitments and disavowed large-scale military interventions. Rather, he embraced quick in-and-out military engagement, such as by drones, combined with building up partner capacity. Indeed, the examples he picked – Somalia, Yemen and Mali – have featured such limited operations.

The desire to focus on the social, institutional and economic challenges that the United States faces internally is certainly appropriate. U.S. foreign policy will be far more effective if it emanates from a strong internal U.S. core. It is equally appropriate to rebalance U.S. foreign policy away from the excessive trigger-happy military interventionism that has characterized U.S. foreign policy for too many years, hemorrhaged U.S. resources and undermined U.S. credibility and leadership.

However, the belief that national security policy on a shoe-string, premised on quick in-and-out interventions with limited commitment will accomplish U.S. foreign policy goals will in many cases be a dangerous, seductive illusion. U.S. drone attacks in Somalia hurt Shabaab’s operational capacity, but they hardly debilitate the terrorist group. Nor do they in any way address the structural causes and institutional deficiencies that have given rise to the crisis of governance in Somalia and the emergence of Shabaab. Excessively, a tactical reliance on drones is being relied on to fill the void of an integrated strategy for defending U.S. interests in many parts of the world.

In Mali, the limited intervention mode also embraced by France did succeed in pushing out the jihadists who had taken over the country. But in no way did the drive-by intervention change the underlying dynamics of exclusionary governance and ethnic tensions that enabled the jihadists to score their success. In fact, the much touted presidential election in Mali in 2013 brought back to power the very same leaders whose problematic governance created the enabling environment for the jihadists in the first place. And even on the battlefield, the success of the French intervention has been steadily eroding: the jihadists are increasing their operations outside of Kidal, insecurity and criminality are growing, and the fragile deal between the Tuaregs and the government in Bamako is already fractured.

The assumption that building partner capacity will robustly secure U.S. interests is equally problematic. More often than not, there will not be a strong alignment of U.S. and so-called “partner” interests, and the presumed partners will not carry the water for the United States, particularly on highly sensitive matters such as fighting terrorists and insurgents or reforming exclusionary and corrupt political processes and institutions that underlie government weakness and conflict.

Occasionally, in unstable and fragile states there might be points of intersection of interests of regimes or political movements with those of the United States, but such intersection does not imply robust and lasting alignment. Where there are existing multifaceted and cross-cutting alignments of interests, building local capacity may indeed enhance the achievement of shared goals. However, just the transfer of capacities to a “partner”, no matter how extensive the training, resources or engagement of U.S. Special Operations Forces, will not generate a fundamental convergence of interests.

Just like the warlords on whom the United States relied in the early phases of the Afghanistan intervention, the presumed partners, whether in government or out, will often pocket the money (and weapons) and run … servicing their own interests, not ours. They will undertake only the absolute minimum action necessary to keep U.S. resources flowing while striking their own deals and accommodations, hedging their bets or targeting their own enemies, not those of the United States. “Partner” action might thus often come with side-effects the United States will find highly undesirable, such as blatantly eliminating one’s political enemies with U.S. weapons, and at times directly subverting U.S. objectives.

The seduction of such limited military engagement and of the belief that others will do for us what we are not willing to do ourselves is based on two illusions: first, that such limited engagements and reliance on others will actually adequately secure U.S. interests; and second, that it will not get the United States mired in open-ended ventures (an assumption contradicted, for example, by the open-ended U.S. reliance and dependence on drone hits against al Qaeda and salafi targets in Pakistan).

In the State of the Union Speech, President Obama repeatedly stressed that he was bringing the war in Afghanistan to an end. More accurately, he is bringing the U.S. direct military involvement in the war to an end. It is ironic, however, that it is the George W. Bush-Donald Rumsfeld approach to the war in Afghanistan – limited, quick in-and-out intervention on a shoestring that relies on distant military platforms and bought-up local proxies furnished with transferred U.S. resources – that President Obama has come to embrace as his own doctrine for many other complex and challenging parts of the world. All the more ironic because it was this early Bush administration approach that squandered the opportunity to transform Afghanistan into a more stable and thriving place, embracing the aspirations of its people while securing U.S. counterterrorism and geostrategic objectives.

Indeed, the United States should only deploy its military might and risk the lives of its citizens when the vital U.S. interests are at stake. But when it does so, the political resolve and resource commitments need to be robust. Such commitments involve not only a comprehensive military strategy matched by adequate resources, but also an equivalent political, diplomatic and economic strategy prepared for involvement in the difficult and complex (and dirty) politics and state-building of the target country. If we are not willing to do so, we shouldn’t go in … not with our soldiers, and often not even with our drones.

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On July 15, the Managing Global Order project at Brookings hosted Jeffrey Feltman, the United Nations under-secretary-general for political affairs to discuss the role of UN diplomacy in today’s crises around the globe. His remarks focused on UN efforts in Syria, Somalia and the Great Lakes region in Africa. Feltman was joined by a panel that included Wegger Strommen, the ambassador of Norway to the U.S., Bruce Jones, senior fellow and director of the Managing Global Order project at Brookings and moderator Martin Indyk, vice president and director of Foreign Policy at Brookings.

Feltman opened his remarks by posing two broader questions that he hoped to answer, both relating to the UN’s role in conflict mediation. First, what are the main differences between working on peace and diplomacy multilaterally versus UN bilateral diplomacy? Second, what are some of the key challenges that the UN faces when engaging in diplomatic efforts?

In regards to the first question, Feltman said he underestimated the time and effort necessary to adjust to the intricacies of UN diplomacy, as he had worked primarily within the field of U.S. diplomacy prior to his appointment at the UN.

“Until you leave the U.S. government, you cannot fully grasp what it means to walk into a room, backed at all times, by the tangible powers of the presidency, the Pentagon, the dollar, the voting weight of the IMF and the World Bank and the permanent seat on the UN Security Council,” Feltman said.

However, he added that UN officials also wield important sources of power as they attempt to coax antagonists toward peace. He said learning how to leverage “intangibles”—including ideals, values and impartiality—has been crucial in his UN education.

“The legitimacy the UN can convey on issues of peace and security cannot be replicated by any single nation, no matter how powerful,” Feltman said. He also emphasized that almost all conflicts are rooted in politics, so it is crucial for the UN to understand the political nature of their mediating efforts.

“Lasting solutions to conflicts require working the politics in tough places,” Feltman added.

Feltman then began to narrow in on the ongoing war in Syria. He cited Syria as an example of a challenge the UN faces when a divergence of perspectives paralyzes the Security Council. The UN is currently facing a deadlock regarding a political solution to the conflict, so Feltman mentioned three different areas that his office emphasizes in regards to the ongoing crisis.

First, the UN has continued to focus on mobilizing support for humanitarian relief to aid refugees and internally displaced persons both in Syria and in neighboring countries. The UN is also working to mitigate dangers and spillover conflict in Jordan and Lebanon, two neighboring countries that have experienced a large influx of Syrian refugees. Finally, the UN is committed to organizing post-conflict planning. Feltman reemphasized that he does not believe there is an immediate military solution to the conflict, so the UN’s role is to help the necessary political actors reach a political solution.

He then turned to Somalia, which he said is currently at a potential turning point.

“For the UN, this country represents the challenge of how, in the face of so many crises demanding attention, the UN can help to sustain regional and international focus on a process that has the promise of real success but still needs to be nurtured,” Feltman said.

The task of ending anarchy and building a stable government in Somalia has taken on great strategic and humanitarian significance for the UN. Feltman noted that the UN has invested heavily in Somalia, with key partners in the African Union and the U.S. The organization helped mediate the 2008 Djibouti Agreement, which laid out a roadmap to transition last year when Somalis elected a new government.